The stone walls of the prayer room were cold and damp.
Crack.
The whip struck his back with a dull thud.
It did not hurt as much as he had imagined.
Fabian knelt before the statue, his bare upper body covered in crisscrossing welts. Sweat mingled with blood and ran down his spine, dripping onto the open letter on the floor and blurring the ink.
[Estimated deaths: three thousand.]
[Holy water sales increased by forty percent.]
Every word in that letter had become a red-hot branding iron, churning through his brain.
Crack.
Another lash. Beads of blood scattered onto the statue's cold feet.
Fabian dropped the whip and collapsed on the floor. He raised his head and stared at the compassionate face of the God of Holy Radiance.
Carved from stone.
All of it, carved from stone.
Even if the faithful wore their knees raw and shattered their foreheads against the floor, this stone would not shed a single tear.
"Why..."
Fabian clutched his hair, digging his nails into his scalp. "Tell me... is this the light?"
Only echoes bounced between the walls.
Creak.
The heavy wooden door swung open.
Light sliced into the room, almost painfully bright.
Fabian instinctively curled into a ball, trying to hide the ugly scars on his body.
"You don't need to hide."
The voice was gentle, like flowing spring water.
Elias stepped inside. The young priest of the True Source Sect wore no elaborate priestly robes, only a neat linen tunic, and held a thin manuscript in his hands.
He approached Fabian and crouched beside him.
Untroubled by the blood on the floor, Elias took a clean handkerchief from inside his tunic and wiped the cold sweat from Fabian's temples.
"Does it hurt?" Elias asked.
Fabian gave a bitter laugh, his voice as hoarse